Bayview Heights Trilogy (68 page)

“Thank you all for coming.” Kurt smiled, and
Zoe had to glance away from his warm green eyes.

Her wandering gaze landed on her students;
she saw Erica stick her hands into the pockets of her short canvas
jacket and frown. Shelley adjusted the hooded BVH sweatshirt she
wore with a long fleece skirt, then straightened. Julia, decked out
today in a yellow slicker and pants to match, whispered something
to Shondra, who was wrapped in a tailored black raincoat.

“Excuse me,” Zoe said to Rachel and Rob. She
threaded her way through the crowd to the girls. Guilt suffused
their faces when she reached them. She’d already made it clear
she’d tolerate none of their shenanigans.

Last week, she’d confronted the prospective
clinic volunteers after their rude behavior to Kurt…

“What’s going on?” she’d asked bluntly

Dead silence.

“Got me,” Dan Caruso had finally put in. “The
chicks were playin’ Dump on the Doctor, big time.”

“Chicks?” Julia had affected an outraged
glare. “Join the twenty-first century, Caruso.”

Dan had rolled his eyes. “It’s what you guys
call yourselves, Starr. You’re just pi—” he glanced at Zoe “—mad
that I wouldn’t go along. Lansing’s an okay guy. Give him a
break.”

Getting the gist, Zoe smiled at the boy.
“Dan, you can leave. It’s obvious you’re not a part of this.”

When he was gone, Zoe slid onto one of the
desks and nodded for the girls to sit down. “Spit it out, ladies,”
she said after they circled around her.

Rachel played with her hair. Ashley studied
her science notebook. Julia wouldn’t meet her gaze. Only Erica
faced her. Zoe wasn’t surprised. The girl loved her like a mother
and was probably the ringleader in this little game.

“He’s pond scum!” Erica blurted out. “We
don’t want to work with him.”

Zoe gentled her voice. “Please don’t call him
that, Erica. He’s a brilliant doctor with a heart of gold. He wants
to help people more than anyone I know. And this clinic is a big
asset to the community and the school.”

Erica scowled. “He hurt you.” For all their
sophistication, these girls were still young in so many ways.

Swallowing hard, Zoe counted to ten. “Yes, he
did, though I don’t think it’s really any of your concern.”

“Why not?” Ashley said. “We talk about boys
with you. You’ve helped me a lot with Evan.”

“I’m a teacher. That’s my job.”

Julia rolled her eyes in a theatrical
gesture. “You’re more than our teacher. We love you. And we hate
him for hurting you.”

Spontaneously Zoe reached out and squeezed
Julia’s hand. “Jules, he didn’t hurt me intentionally. I guess you
know the story. But just to set the record straight, he went back
to his wife—that’s all he did. Men and women have problems like
this, where it’s nobody’s fault.”

“What happened?” Erica asked candidly. “Why’s
he here, then?”

Zoe shifted uneasily. “It didn’t work out
between them.”

“You’re not getting back with him, are you?”
she asked, clearly horrified.

“Girls, I really don’t want to get into a
discussion of my personal life.”

“All right,” Julia said. “But just tell us
that.”

Zoe knew when to give in with kids. They did
love her, and they were worried. “No, I’m not getting back with
him. And I am a bit uncomfortable having to work with him now. But
remember how I told you I thought Hemingway was right—anybody can
handle things well when life is good. It’s when things get rough
that you have to come through. It’s called—”

“Grace under pressure.” Erica’s tone had been
impatient.

“Yes, honey, it is. And we all need to behave
well during this difficult time.”

Obviously Erica hadn’t agreed. She’d walked
out then, and Zoe hadn’t had a chance to talk to her since...

Zoe was brought back to the present by Kurt’s
announcement.

“First I’d like to introduce the
counselors.”

“Hi, everyone.” Seth came to stand beside Zoe
as he scanned the crowd. “Lacey here?” he asked.

“Right up front,” Zoe answered. She watched
Seth smile at his petite wife.

“She’s writing a feature for the paper,” he
said proudly.

“Good.”

Seth’s eyes narrowed. “I forgot
he’d
be here.”

“Who?”

“Linc McKenna.” Zoe saw the handsome
high-school counselor standing next to Lacey lean over, say
something to her and make her smile. Zoe remembered that Lacey had
dated McKenna briefly before she and Seth had gotten together.

“Most of you know Linc McKenna,” Kurt
continued as if addressing Seth’s statement. “He’s a school
counselor and will be the clinic’s liaison with the high school.
He’ll help us with all aspects of educational coordination. We’re
lucky to get him. He has a masters from Cornell and has worked with
in other similar situations.”

“Harrumph,” Seth grumbled, sticking his hands
in the pockets of his suitcoat.

“Back off, buddy,” Zoe whispered. The Taylors
had a marriage made in heaven, and certainly Seth had nothing to
worry about there.

“Next is our drug-and-alcohol counselor, Mark
Grayson.”

Zoe watched a tall reed-thin man wave to the
crowd. He looked impossibly young with his poet’s face, longish
hair and earring winking from underneath.

“Mark’s got three years’ experience at City
Hospital and has had a number of internships in New York. He’s a
certified alcohol counselor and we’re lucky to get him, too.”

Zoe watched Kurt smile warmly at the man.
Then he introduced Louise Sheffield, a PhD from Columbia, retired
for ten years to raise her kids. An old friend of Kurt’s, she’d
agreed to come back at his urging. He’d told Zoe stories of the
miracles the woman had worked with hard-core kids.

Next he introduced Diane Diaz, a nurse. She
was a petite woman who lived in town and had two children in high
school.

“As you probably know, Dr. Max Johnson runs
the Planned Parenthood program, which operates out of South Avenue,
but he’ll be moving the division in with us.” A big black man with
steel-gray hair and a friendly smile stepped out to be seen. Zoe
knew him well, and she liked and respected the hardworking, often
beleaguered counselor.

“On the medical side, I’ll be handling the
checkups, pediatric care and minor medical mishaps, along with Dr.
Abraham Frank, who will be joining us in November. We’re also
fortunate to have a premed student from Columbia—John
Battaglia.”

“Yummy,” she heard Shondra say.

“De-licious,” Shelley added.

All the girls but Erica giggled over Johnny.
Dressed in a black T-shirt and black denims under his battered
black leather jacket, he saluted the crowd and stepped back next to
Mitch, whom she hadn’t noticed before.

A former At Risk student, Johnny had
practically been adopted by the Lansings when Mitch had broken up
the gang to which the boy had belonged. In those five years he’d
become a vital part of the Lansing family. And for three years he’d
worked at Kurt’s clinic. Mitch had gotten him the job when he was
in high school and he’d continued during his first two years at
Columbia. When the clinic in Bayview Heights got the go-ahead, he’d
gleefully switched to this one and freed himself up on Thursdays
through Saturdays. He planned to live with Mitch and Cassie in the
new house for that part of the week. The Lansings were elated to
have him back even part-time, and had added a suite of rooms at one
end of their new house for him. They’d all move in next week.

“That’s it.” Kurt smiled again and thanked
everyone for coming.

The mayor handed Kurt scissors to cut the big
red ribbon. They’d all go inside now, have a short reception, then
Kurt would meet with Zoe’s volunteers, who’d start work
tomorrow.

Taking a deep breath, she watched the girls
file in ahead of her, and with Seth behind her, she inched slowly
forward, repeating the mantra in her head.
Grace under
pressure. Grace under pressure. Grace under pressure.

Damn, she never did like Hemingway.

o0o

IT WAS LIKE facing a teenage firing squad.
They sat stiffly in the conference room, itching to take shots at
him, but instead, they’d been ordered to hold their fire. He
expected nothing less after Zoe got through with them
yesterday.

Zoe was cool and collected in the midst of
them. She’d taken off her raincoat and wore a tailored navy suit
with a red blouse. Her hair was a fluffy mass and fell onto her
forehead in sexy bangs. The overhead lights in the small conference
room winked off of her dangling red-jeweled earrings. Though he
wasn’t close enough, he swore he could smell her perfume.

“Good afternoon,” he said simply.

“Afternoon,” the lone boy, Dan, returned
cheerfully. He sat close to Julia, a little away from the other
girls. Dressed in all black, he reminded Kurt of a young Johnny
Battaglia.

Little by little the kids acknowledged
him.

“Hello.”

“Hi.”

“Good afternoon.”

Holding up a sheet of paper, he said, “I have
several jobs available here, but I thought I’d give you my opinion
first on where you might be the most helpful and the most
effective.”

Zoe’s eyes shone with approval. He might be a
personal failure with her, but he knew his job, and he knew
volunteers.

“I’ve studied your résumés carefully and made
notes during our discussion last week. I tried to match your
interests, your talents and particularly your goals in life with
the positions we have open. In some ways I’ve mimicked the
shadowing program you have at school.”

The shadowing program was a project where
students paired up with adults who worked in a profession the
teenagers thought they might want to pursue; it had been
implemented by Zoe and Linc McKenna. A slight smile breached Zoe’s
lips at the reference.

“Let’s start alphabetically. By the way, if
you disagree with your placement, I’ll change it.” Tongue-in-
cheek, he added, “We wouldn’t want any unhappy workers here.” He
sat on the desk, and made eye contact with each girl. All of them,
except Erica, shifted uncomfortably.

“Dan Caruso. I’ve put you in the nursery. You
expressed an interest in working with little kids, and since we’ve
got an area set up for patients’ children and pediatric patients
who are waiting to be seen, I thought you might like that.”

“Yeah, I would,” Dan said casually, but the
shine in the boy’s eyes told Kurt he’d made the right choice.

One down.

“Ashley Emerson.” He smiled at the girl and
she smiled back weakly. Kurt had noticed she’d come late and looked
rather pale, despite her cheerful pink sweater and slacks. “Planned
Parenthood. With Max Johnson. You indicated a desire to work with
teens on life choices.”

Ashley went paler, nodded, then shared a
worried glance with Rachel.

“Shondra and Erica, you’ll work in the
medical facility. Shondra, as you expressed an interest in studying
medicine, you’ll work with the new doctor, Abraham Frank, when he
comes. Erica, you’ll be with me in administration.” He smiled.
“Both of you will help out John Battaglia.”

Erica’s face flushed. “I don’t want
that.”

“You don’t want to work with John?”

“I don’t want to work with you.”

Shondra kicked her under the table.

“All right, Erica. Stay after everyone
leaves. We’ll discuss this.”

He read the other placements by rote, his
mind whirling. He hoped he hadn’t made a mistake with the Case
girl. He didn’t think he had; he trusted his professional
instincts. It was his personal instincts that weren’t worth a whole
lot these days.

He finished with the students. Julia would
work with Louise and Linc, the psychologists; Rachel Thompson, who
wanted to be a nurse, and Shelley Marco, who was going into sports
training, would help out Diane.

“Of course time frames and hours will
vary—I’m leaving you to schedule that with your respective
‘bosses.’” He glanced at the clock. “Why don’t you go find them and
see what they have in mind for what you’ll do and when you’ll
start.” He smiled warmly at Erica. “Stay with me, Erica. Shondra,
you can meet with John in my office.”

Slowly everyone but Zoe and Erica filed
out.

Zoe stood. “I’d like to talk to Erica
first.”

Kurt shook his head. “You’ve already talked
to Erica. I think it’s time she and I had a little chat.” He took
in the girl’s stony features, tight lips. “Alone.”

One of the Zoe’s eyebrows shot up. “I don’t
think—”

“I want to talk to him alone.”

Zoe shifted her gaze. “Erica, we discussed
this.”

“I’ll be polite. But you taught us to express
our opinions. I want to do that.” She raked Kurt with an adult
glare. “Alone.”

Glancing from Kurt to Erica, Zoe shrugged,
squeezed the girl’s arm and left with, “I’ll be right outside.”

Kurt studied Erica as she scrutinized him. In
an arena, they’d be circling each other, figuring out how to go for
the jugular. But he’d taken an oath to heal, not hurt, and he’d
already planned this encounter. He began without preamble. “I
assigned you to work with me primarily because it will help you in
the college-application process. Clinic-administration experience
will look good on your résumé.”

The girl swallowed hard. She wore a simple
white ribbed shirt and beige skirt. Tall and lanky, she would have
been nondescript if it wasn’t for her penetrating dark blue eyes.
With typical teenage bravado, she flipped her hair back off her
shoulder. “I won’t have any trouble getting into college.”

“Every bit helps. You’ve applied to
Georgetown.”

She nodded.

“I went there.”

Her face fell. He was sorry to hit below the
belt, but a lot was at stake here. And sometimes the cure was
worse, initially, than the disease.

“I also picked you to work with me because I
can tell you don’t like me and I thought it would help if you got
to know me.”